Lucky Jim
Book description
Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling.
Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim…
Why read it?
4 authors picked Lucky Jim as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Start with the classic, this legendary British satire about cloistered college life and the darker side of the academic way of life. The story of a hapless lecturer in medieval history trying to secure his job (and get his dream girl), the book works for me on every level: it’s funny, it’s insightful, it can be scathing, and it manages to simultaneously value this strange way of life (what can be stranger than dedicating your life to study within the bubble of the academy?) while also skewering its foibles and flaws. Come for the comedy; stay for the insight and…
From Andrew's list on the college campus and its craziness.
Jim, the protagonist, is swimming upstream in a highly dysfunctional academic department. The first time I read it, I was not amused. The second time, and then the third time, I got hooked. This is a character study about surprising inner strength emerging from the shards of distressingly bad events, both academic and personal. Jim is indeed lucky at the end, but his luck is clearly deserved.
From Stephen's list on campus stories that mix poignancy with humor.
The greatest, funniest, British campus novel, which is saying a lot. Jim is a lecturer at a mediocre but pretentious university in the English midlands in the 1950s. He is in a sexless relationship with his manipulative, unattractive girlfriend and fellow lecturer, Margaret, and is worried that if he doesn’t publish, his probationary period won’t be extended. At the end of the year he must give a lecture which will decide his fate—and has the brilliant idea of getting drunk first, which does not prevent him from delivering a devastating verdict on his colleagues. The novel is hilarious, sharply observed,…
From Garry's list on satirical novels to make you laugh... and think.
Lucky Jim is the hysterical book that made me fall in love with the academic novel. It’s a perfect example of how setting functions as a character. In an academic novel, it’s not enough that a character attends or is employed by a school; the setting of the school must be so integral to the plot and the protagonist’s arc that the story could not be set anywhere else. Lucky Jim’s protagonist is a university lecturer who has fallen into his job and first inwardly, then outwardly, rebels against the provincial, class-bound values of the school and 1950s British…
From Leslie's list on the world of academia, prep schools, and campus life.
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